Thanks for..

Looking back, I have been in Melbourne for 3 months plus already. And I had been lucky to savour so many people's culinary skills...

I am especially thankful for Chef K aka Thai lady for cooking and teaching me some culinary skills like how to consume avocado.

Let's side track a bit and talk about the nutritional value of avocado which I researched after xL says avocado has fats which I recalled was good fats.

Avocados are high in valuable fats and appear to have a beneficial effect on blood serum levels. For a typical avocado:
* About 75% of an avocado's calories come from fat, most of which is monounsaturated fat.
* Avocados also have 60% more potassium than bananas. They are rich in B vitamins, as well as vitamin E and vitamin K.
* Avocados have a high fiber content among fruits - including 75% insoluble and 25% soluble fiber.
* A fatty triol (fatty alcohol) with one double bond, avocadene (16-heptadecene-1,2,4-triol), is found in avocado.
Source: Wiki

Not too bad I guess. Except I'm quite lazy to purchase avocado though I was given 2 by a colleague when he had bought a box of avocados for just 2 AUD. (Of which seriously when the deal is too cheap, the fruits tend to be on the verge to spoil so it is really best not to scrimp and save too much on this extent.. at least not for me because it will pain me to throw away spoilt food actually.) But have to admit, it was easy to extract avocados.

Still remember when Chef K was with me, Melbourne was still in cold. So on this particular cold day, we were deciding between having hot porridge or shabu shabu. In the end we chose shabu shabu that day, and have porridge the next day haha.

Hmm I think I might purchase bitter gourd the next time, eh probably next year?

Mushrooms too..

Then I have another colleague whom also had been nice to encourage us to cook though initially we refused to cook no matter what haha. Still remember he lend xL a James Oliver book and both of us were 'forced' to flip through and learnt something. Haha I concluded too european style for my liking but the salads were interesting. Then he suggested to cook for us and ta-da... with Chef K, they both created 3 lovely dishes. Haha still remember both of them kept saying, presentation very important. A skill that I will take very very very long and might not even muster it.

Also thankful for xL. Twice she cooked green beans..

and red bean soups .. and shared with me.

Haha I only cooked barley drink for her though.. too limited my culinary skills. Actually it was because of her that we both decided to be serious in cooking... our lunch haha. So must thank her for that too else I will probably never bother to pick up cooking.

Lastly thanks to my mum. On and off she will dropped me some cooking ideas or answer my question on how to cook something. I don't know if I did follow her instructions or not but yupz, I'm grateful for her. Recently we were seeing xmas gifts and my friend was saying is it possible to pass her mum this cooking notebook and asked her mum to write down the recipes. Haha and I kidded her saying her mum will cook and made her observe and write it down. But I was thinking, maybe it is a good idea to get my mum to write me a cooking book too right haha. Anyway was craving for chicken biscuits but curious abt the home brand plus mum said I should buy something to bring to Sydney as I wouldn't have time to get breakfast the next day.. so ta-da.. my chicken flavoured biscuits..